The poem
Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood, They lisped in accents mild, But when I asked them to explain They grew a little wild. How do you know your Bog is dood My darling little child?
We know because we wish it so That is enough, they cried, And straight within each infant eye Stood up the flame of pride, And if you do not think it so You shall be crucified.
Then tell me, darling little ones, What's dood, suppose Bog is? Just what we think, the answer came, Just what we think it is. They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours And we are wholly his.
But when they raised them up again They had forgotten me Each one upon each other glared In pride and misery For what was dood, and what their Bog They never could agree.
Oh sweet it was to leave them then, And sweeter not to see, And sweetest of all to walk alone Beside the encroaching sea, The sea that soon should drown them all, That never yet drowned me.
Seems to be based on "The Walrus & the Carpenter" - rythm and seashore. Mentiones drowning like her "other" one :-)
This poem is brilliant satire. Smith undermines those who claim God is dead just to be seen as fashionable and risque. It is not as some have suggested a poem in favour of Christianity but a nice attack on arrogant philosophers.
John V. Jackson should have elaborated... the sea/drowning is linked in both, the drowning occurs due to people's preoccupation with themselves. Here it is their own fault as they prattle on and debate, whereas in 'Not Waving But Drowning' the man is a victim as his 'friends' are so preoccupied with themselves.